Import file with .file file extension

[Rebecca Ivester]

Hello,

I am trying to import data with a .file file extension and can't seem to figure out how. If it helps, I am trying to import the file in the ED2017.zip folder found at ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statist...atasets/NHAMCS . Any ideas? (Would this be better in SAS . . . ? :x )

[William Lisowski]

You have my sympathy. The web site you found is not suited to purpose.

From it I downloaded ED2017.zip and readme2017.txt. The former is apparently in a fixed format record layout, and the latter tells use

   For ease of transmission, the data file has been converted into a zipped
   (compressed) format which must be uncompressed prior to use. To uncompress,
   you can do the following:    

   1) Create a new folder on your local workstation, for example, C:\MYFILES\ED2017

   2) Download to the new folder the file ED2017.zip from the FTP server:
      
      ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Datasets/NHAMCS/

   3) Right-click on the name of the compressed file from your directory screen. On
      the pop-up menu, there should be an option to extract the file to a location of your
      choosing.

   In the past, the NHAMCS documentation was produced in multiple files
   which were then compressed into a single self-extracting file in ASCII
   format.  Beginning with 1999, the documentation file has been produced
   as a single file in PDF format which can be viewed or downloaded from the
   above address.  This file is not compressed.

                                                             Size (bytes)
   File Name         File Description                  Compressed  Uncompressed
  
   ED2017.zip        NHAMCS Emergency Department file      1.7 MB     40.1 MB

   doc17_ed.pdf      NHAMCS ED documentation file                      1.2 MB

The file doc17_ed.pdf does not exist in that location, however. I suspect that you somehow found yourself at an obsolete FTP site.

Instead, starting from the description of NHAMCS given at

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ahcd/about_ahcd.htm

I followed the link to "What's New" in the left column to another page from which the 2017 NHAMCS data is linked to at

ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statist...n/nhamcs/stata

from which I downloaded ed2017-stata.zip which has within it ed2017-stata.dta which is apparently a Stata dataset containing the data, and readme2017-ed-stata.txt which seems to describe the data.

Good luck!